Rosemary and Persimmon
by edwards-angel22
Summary: What was the third thing that Hermione smelled in the Amortentia?


Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter. Please, hold your shocked gasps and read the story. It's just more Ron/Hermione fluff for you (From Hermione's point of view for once). Enjoy!

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Hermione's life was full of those wonderful, unexpected surprises that seem to come around the corner and brighten your day in a most peculiar manner. On the best days of her childhood, the sun-drenched Saturdays where time was swallowed slowly and nothing seemed to matter at all, her father would sit her on his lap and help her steer the lawnmower around the front yard. The neighbor boys would point and snigger, but she didn't care in the least. Because she could feel the protective arms of her father on either side of her, hear the lazy rumble of the mower, smell the expelled juice of the freshly cut grass. And he would sweep her up with his gloved hands once finished and brush the tiny green ribbons out of her tangled hair.

"You're a regular gardener, darling!" He'd declare proudly, "And I happen to know a certain little gardener who likes peanut butter and jelly!"

She would feel giddy with the contentment of being an only child who had a father like that all to herself. He spoiled her rotten and yelled at her just once, when she broke her grandmother's urn above the mantle. But she had been completely befuddled as to how that had happened. One moment, she had been running away from a playful game of chase with her dog Carson, and the next she was perched on top of the fireplace. The urn had fallen before she could catch it. Her father had, of course, been upset to see his mother's remains lying scattered around the living room rug. It made sense only years later, when a letter addressed to her in green ink came soaring through the mail slot. Her parents were overjoyed to hear that she had magical powers, and they followed directions to Diagon Alley to gift her with new school supplies. Her hands were full with bags of ink and quills and fresh parchment that smelled like a piece of heaven. She would stop walking every now and then to bury her nose in the sack and inhale the blissful scent. And then came that fateful day at platform 9 ¾, where she discovered a rather discourteous redheaded boy and the infamous Harry Potter while trying to help someone find his lost toad. She was instantly attracted by their friendship and wanted to be part of it, but they only kept pushing her away.

"It's no wonder no one can stand her, she's a nightmare, honestly…"

Of all the things that Hermione might have expected from Ron, that most certainly wasn't one of them. She had cried and cried in the bathroom, and it was only when a mountain troll came and scared her out of her thoughts that she was able to stop. But Ron was the knight in shining armor who saved her life that night. Harry helped a bit.

The two were very good at bickering, though they always made up in the end. She could never understand exactly why they performed this ritual daily, always quarreling about something or other. By fourth year, it had become as normal as breathing, but she wasn't expecting Ron to go off on her when she had started a relationship with Viktor Krum. He was someone who Ron himself admired very greatly, and it was only when Hermione started dating him that he seemed to flip his judgment of his favorite Quidditch player around entirely.

The next year brought with it the prospect of O.W.L.S, and Hermione studied dutifully for them every given moment that she could. She tried desperately to coax Ron and Harry into joining her every time. Lest be said, her attempts were generally fruitless.

There were the long nights when the boys would join her, and just one time, Ron had become so very overwhelmed by everything that he fell asleep in the Common Room. Hermione had been sitting cross-legged on the couch and he was perched on a pillow directly in front of her, and she was startled when his head fell back with a loud thump onto the open book in her lap. Harry had snorted absently as his friend began to snore quietly only seconds later.

"Poor Ron." She had sighed affectionately, and once Harry had given up for the evening and was packing away his books, Hermione had leaned down and ever so gently brushed a kiss against Ron's forehead. His hair smelled wonderfully like rosemary and persimmon, probably the shampoo he used.

She had been repressing her feelings for him for over a year now, and bottling everything up was starting to make her stomach hurt when she thought about it. She wanted to move her lips down from his forehead, to slide between his eyes and over his nose and land on his lips, just to see what he tasted like. But she pulled back after only a moment and shook him awake before Harry could see. Ron opened his crystalline blue eyes and stared into her face above his, face suddenly turning a maddening scarlet color.

She saw the way Lavender Brown looked at him in their sixth year, saw the ravenous hunger in her eyes while she flirted with him in the Common Room. Meanwhile Hermione was left to sit alone and watch helplessly in an armchair across the room from him, desperate to use her classroom tactics, to stick her hand in the air and bounce on her toes and call out "Pick me, I'm the one you want, pick me!"

It pained her to be the best friend every day, pained her to sit next to him in classes and steal sideways glimpses at his dazed expression. He never paid attention. She hated it when he smiled at her, touched her hand when he borrowed one of her quills, hated the way she turned pink around the ears when he popped up out of nowhere and started walking beside her casually. And most of all, she hated Potions class, because that was where everything seemed to change between them over the course of that year. Even the love potion in their first class together played a tiny role.

"It's Amortentia!" Hermione exclaimed with enthusiasm when Slughorn questioned the class as to what the potion was, exactly.

"It is indeed." Slughorn beamed. "It seems foolish to ask, but I assume you know what it does?"

Hermione smiled. "It's the most powerful love potion in the world!"

Ron was watching her out of the corner of his eye, impressed. Her face grew warm.

"Quite right! You recognized it, I supposed, by it's distinctive mother-of-pearl sheen?" Slughorn continued.

"And the characteristic spirals," Hermione pointed out. "And it's supposed to smell differently to each one of us, according to what attracts us, and I can smell freshly mown grass and new parchment and-"

She cut herself off, suddenly feeling her cheeks redden. It was true, she did smell the freshly cut lawn that reminded her of childhood and the parchment she bought while shopping for Hogwarts, and she had no problem in revealing this to the class. What did bother her, however, what that she had almost told everyone that she had also detected the strong aroma of rosemary and persimmon shampoo…

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_If I know what love is, it is because of you._

_~ Herman Hesse_

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**A/N: Well, I'm not sure if I got the scent of the shampoo right. But J.K. Rowling did mention in a webchat that the third thing Hermione smelled in the love potion was Ron Weasley's hair. Aww.**

**Nice reviews are greatly appreciated!**


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